The
Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi
regime during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the
21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945
two out of every three European Jews had been killed.

The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust. But Jews were not
the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as
one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled
persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to
Nazi genocide.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans,
trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also
victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

Nazi persecution, arrests, and deportations were directed against all members of
Jewish families without concern for age. Plucked from their homes and stripped
of their childhoods, the children had witnessed the murder of parents, siblings,
and relatives.

They faced starvation, illness and brutal labor, until they were consigned to
the gas chambers.
/Louis Bülow